Here and there... my walks in the land of pralines, couques, and gosettes.. (page 5 of 9)

No pralines, but some proper Belgian chocolate: Côte d'Or opened a store yesterday exclusively dedicated to its brand—it's near the Grand Place, at 5 rue de la Tête d'Or in Brussels.

https://www.gondola.be/fr/news/cote-dor-lance-un-flagship-store-au-centre-de-bruxelles

Oh wow, good news! :)

I remember the days when the air smelled so good of chocolate as we left Midi Station. By the way, you didn’t mention another true Belgian specialty: the waffle.

At No. 38, you can see sgraffito works signed by Paul Cauchie, in very poor condition.

The Cauchie from the famous Brussels house I still haven’t managed to visit? (You really have to time it just right.)

I think I’ll have to make a special trip just for that...

I remember the days when the air smelled so good of chocolate as you left Brussels-Midi station. By the way, you didn’t mention another Belgian specialty: the waffle.

I was planning to talk about it in my next post, having eaten a delicious Liège waffle flavored with cinnamon just a few days ago—it was piping hot! But since you brought it up...

Among the many waffle varieties out there, I’d say the two most common in Belgium are the Brussels waffle and the Liège waffle.

The Brussels waffle is rectangular, golden, light, and crispy. You eat it dusted with powdered sugar, topped with whipped cream and strawberries, or stuffed with fruit like cherries, apricots, or even apples... In theory, it’s made without yeast, but in practice, nearly all bakers use some. You can find them all over Brussels, in other cities too, and especially at funfairs. It’s the one that was presented at the 1964 New York World’s Fair as the "Belgian waffle."

Meanwhile, the Liège waffle is denser and more square-shaped. It’s flavored with cinnamon, and pearl sugar can be added to the batter.

There are special waffle irons for Brussels waffles and others for Liège waffles.

For those who’d like to try making them, I found a foolproof Brussels waffle recipe here: https://www.cuisineaz.com/recettes/gaufres-de-bruxelles-inratables-9518.aspx

And an equally foolproof Liège waffle recipe (it doesn’t include cinnamon, but feel free to add some): https://cuisine.journaldesfemmes.fr/recette/309218-gaufres-de-liege

Speaking of the Côte d’Or chocolate factory near Midi station, I remember it too. As soon as you stepped out of the station, you were wrapped in this sweet chocolate scent. At least, that’s how I experienced it—but I’ve seen people cover their noses, heh ;)

At number 38, you can see sgraffito work signed by Paul Cauchie, in very poor condition.

The Cauchie from the famous Brussels house I still haven’t managed to visit? (You really have to time it just right)

I think I’ll have to make a special trip for it...

I highly recommend it. A little gem. The issue is that you can only visit it on the first weekend of each month. Like you said, you’ve got to time it just right 😛

voyages.michelin.fr/...elles/maison-cauchie

In Wallonia, or at least in certain regions like the province of Namur, we don’t call them waffles but galettes.

Since we’re still working on our waistlines, let’s not forget speculoos—a visit to the magnificent Dandoy shop near Brussels’ Grand Place is a must. And for little culinary discoveries, there are also *caricoles* sold near the flea market. I wonder if the street vendors still exist...

In Wallonia, or at least in certain regions like the province of Namur, they don’t call them waffles but galettes.

The famous Namur galettes. Eat them in moderation though, since they’re much more concentrated in flour, butter, and sugar than waffles 😛 Here’s a recipe that says it all:

https://www.marmiton.org/recettes/recette_galettes-de-namur-belgique_12973.aspx

Since we’re still working on our waistlines, let’s not forget speculoos—you’ve got to visit the magnificent Dandoy shop near Brussels’ Grand Place...

Speculoos fill the shops and baskets in December... in the shape of Saint Nicholas (celebrated on December 6th).

For your info, a new district will open in Brussels in 2020 on the former Tour & Taxis site. There’ll be 28 new streets, including one called "Speculoos Passage" 😉

Speculoos fill the shops and baskets in December... in the shape of Saint Nicholas (celebrated on December 6th)

Indeed, in Belgium (as in some regions of France), it's Saint Nicholas—not Santa Claus—who hands out sweets, toys, and other gifts to well-behaved children. That’s on December 6th. Another delicious tradition is at Easter. The church bells, which fall silent from Good Friday, are said to fly to Rome and return on Easter Day with eggs that they leave in gardens (or elsewhere if there’s no garden) for the children: colored hard-boiled eggs, but also chocolate eggs—small, big, even huge—and other treats.

Let’s start with a little Christmas magic; the abundance of twinkling lights in the center of Namur immediately shows that the capital of the Walloon region is prosperous and bustling. The industrial revolution spared it, unlike Charleroi and Liège.

Namur was already mentioned in Julius Caesar’s time, but over the centuries, it’s remained discreet and peaceful—even though, as you’d guess, its location at the crossroads of two major rivers (the Sambre and the Meuse) and its rocky promontory made it a prime target during battles between European powers.

Since my first stop after arriving from the train station was the Citadel, I first walked through the entire historic center, which is well-preserved and restored, before reaching the foot of the Rock. Every street was lit up.

...a quick hello to Saint-Aubain Cathedral (where it’s always freezing) with its ornate decor, on the square of the same name. The interior was under construction for a show, so I didn’t feel like lingering in this imposing church.

At the foot of the Citadel, you cross the Sambre via the Museum Bridge or, even closer, the Pont de France, before starting the climb. The landslide in November 2019 required reinforcement work, and not all paths are accessible right now. So, it’s via the Rampe Verte that you reach the top of the Citadel.



The Citadel of Namur, built by the Merovingians in the early Middle Ages and later reconstructed around 1230 under Louis IX, is one of the largest in Europe. Napoleon I reportedly nicknamed it "Europe’s termite mound" because of its vast and complex network of underground tunnels. Nowadays, it’s a free-entry walking spot with several restaurants, a perfume workshop, and an archaeological space. From the 10th to the 15th centuries, the Counts of Namur lived within its walls. The Counts’ Castle is often closed to the public and can only be visited on rare occasions.

From the top of the Citadel, which peaks at 190 meters, you get a sweeping view of the city.





I spent a good two hours wandering around, almost alone on the site in mid-December.

The interactive exhibit is in the underground tunnels. To check it out, you’ll have to come back around Easter—it’s open to the public from Easter to the end of September, every day from 11 AM to 6 PM. During the same period, you can take a little red train up to the top of the Rock.

Few people know this, but the foot of Namur’s Citadel is also a stop on the Saint-Jacques de Compostelle Pilgrimage.

In the summer, you can also take cruises departing from Namur: www.croisieres-namur.be/

You can also hop on the river shuttle "La Namourette", running from Jambes to Salzinnes. walloniebelgiquetourisme.be/...et-la-sambre-a-namur...

...let’s head back down into the city. The historic center is home to several museums. I opted for the one dedicated to Félicien Rops at No. 12 Rue Fumal.



This author and painter was born in Namur in 1833. At 18, he left his hometown for Brussels, where he launched *Le Journal Thyl Uylenspiegel*, *Journal des ébats artistiques et littéraires* (1856–1863). He published sarcastic caricatures of the society he felt stifled by.

Later, he lived in Paris, befriended Baudelaire, and met Edmond and Jules de Goncourt before returning home "with pockets full of Parisian women—wild, shadowy, strange, skeletal ones," according to his writings:

The Lady with the Puppet and Fan (1873)

The Sphinx (1882)

Pornocrates (1878)

He also created more subdued works like The Beach at Heyst (1886)

or The Bay of Monaco (1874)

The name of the journal comes from *The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel* by Charles De Coster, which he also illustrated:



Here, it’s Till Eulenspiegel...

Yes, it's the legend of Till Eulenspiegel from the 16th century.

I didn’t express myself clearly when I said the name of the newspaper came from Charles de Coster’s book, which revisited this legend. It’s more accurate to say that Félicien Rops and Charles de Coster both drew inspiration from the *Legend of Till Eulenspiegel*.

Charles de Coster Flemish-ized Till’s name and turned him into a Flemish hero, *Ulenspiegel*, derived from *Uw spiegel* ("your mirror"). (I remember reading this in de Coster’s book, where Thyl says, "Ik ben ulen spiegel"—meaning "I am your mirror" in the Flemish of that era.)

www.ecoles.cfwb.be/.../fiches2002/THYL.htm

When I was a child, my parents told me about Bois du Cazier several times, and I remember attending a commemoration with them. I’m thinking of visiting Bois du Cazier soon too. Thanks for the links—they give the opening hours and access conditions.

I went there yesterday under a fitting sky—gray and drizzling on and off. To get there, I took the bus, which you can catch at the bus station in front of Charleroi-Sud train station. After crossing a few platforms, a small sign points to "Bois du Cazier, platform 8." Perfect. You can choose between bus 1 (to Montignies-sur-Sambre) or bus 52 (to Gourdinne Place). I took bus 1 to the "Petite Chenevière" stop.

I had to take a "shortcut" because I walked around the entire former coal site (converted in 2002 into a museum dedicated to coal mining, steelmaking, and the glass industry) before reaching the entrance. 😛

What we see today is thanks to the Association "Mémoire du Bois du Cazier", which was founded in 1987, 20 years after mining operations ceased.

My first impression, once past the gates, was that I was in an old prisoner-of-war camp. And for good reason—during WWII (1940–45), coal was largely extracted by German prisoners and Belgians avoiding deportation. The first immigrant workers lived in these barracks. Conditions improved slightly later, but workers quickly preferred to move into houses in the surrounding villages once their families could join them.

Toward the back of the coal-mining building, there’s a discreet memorial and wall of remembrance displaying photos of the 262 workers, aged 15 to 53, who died in the August 8, 1956, fire. Their names are repeated in a loop, in their respective languages, along with the first names of their wives and children. Many were Italian, but there were also quite a few Belgians, some Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, Algerians, as well as one Russian and one German. On the side, two very faded flower wreaths stand in front of a black statue depicting two seated miners. Near the memorial entrance, a rusty first-aid crate.

Next to the buildings, some old mine carts.

A mine gallery has been recreated. You can hear the clinking of tools—minus the heat and dust.

The August 8, 1956, exhibit explains the details of the disaster, the history of mining, work in the galleries, and the roles of humans and horses (the horses only came up once a year and all perished in the fire 😕). It also shows the hook system where workers left their work clothes and the shower system. You’ll learn about the different jobs inside the mine.

This YouTube video gives a good overview of the coal-mining section:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-AMEBO3dno

The industrial museum and the glass museum are also worth visiting.

All in all, I spent 4 hours there.

A few words now about couques and gosettes. Just to give you some reference points if you walk into a Belgian bakery-pastry shop;

"Couque" is the name given to several types of viennoiseries. Yes, but in Belgium, and especially in Brussels, we tend to call all viennoiseries "couques."

That’s how the Belgian singer Plastichke (1948-2003) sang that Rasputin had eaten "couques with arsenic." www.bide-et-musique.com/song/2139.html

So we have couques au chocolat (chocolate rolls), couques aux raisins (raisin rolls, also called "Swiss couques"), couques au beurre (they resemble croissants but are more compact): www.panos.be/...946-couque-au-beurre couques à la crème, filled with pastry cream: pralinettes.canalblog.com/.../09/12/10552949.html couques de Noël, or cougnou, eaten during Saint Nicholas and Christmas: a kind of brioche with lots of raisins, and at Christmas, decorated with a little pink sugar Jesus, couques de Dinant, which we mentioned earlier, craquelins (brioche bread containing sugar pearls), cramiques (like cougnou, minus the little Jesus)

...and many others—I don’t know them all ;)

And gosettes?

A gosette is shaped like a half-circle, made from bread dough, and filled with fruit (apples, cherries, plums, apricots) or sometimes rhubarb. You can find them in Brussels, Wallonia, and also in Ghent.

Meanwhile, chaussons, which they’re sometimes confused with, are triangular, filled with fruit, and made from puff pastry. .....in Belgium, people tend to call a chausson a "gosette," so consider yourself warned :P

I remember the days when the air smelled so good of chocolate as you left Brussels-Midi station. By the way, you didn’t mention another Belgian specialty: the waffle.

Another specialty from the Liège region: rice tart, which is also really good (though if it’s made badly, it can be a bit "heavy"). Near Liège station, there’s a well-known bakery that makes good ones.

I think it gets heavy if you add too many eggs to the mix. The lightest version is rice pudding with a little cream in a pie crust 🙂

Another city well worth visiting is Liège.

If you're taking advantage of a trip to Belgium to also visit Aachen or Cologne in Germany, or Maastricht in the Netherlands, and you're traveling by train, you'll pass through Liège-Guillemins station, designed by architect Santiago Calatrava. It was inaugurated in 2009 after 9 years of construction. Its glass roofs cover 32,000 m², and its metal framework required 10,000 tons of steel!





If you'd like to visit the city, I recommend taking one of the many trains that leave from Liège-Guillemins and stop at Liège-Saint-Lambert (with an intermediate stop at Liège-Carré). When you get off at Liège-Saint-Lambert, you'll be just steps away from Place Saint-Lambert, the historic heart of the city. For 30 years, it was under construction, mainly due to archaeological excavations.

The massive building dominating the square is the Palace of the Prince-Bishops.

Since the end of the 10th century, when Bishop Notger established the Principality of Liège, this palace was the residence of the Prince-Bishops until they were driven out in 1789 during the revolution. Around the same time, the people of Liège themselves demolished their imposing cathedral, Saint-Lambert Cathedral, also built on Place Saint-Lambert.

The current "Palace of the Prince-Bishops" is a reconstruction from 1536, built around two courtyards. It houses the Liège Palace of Justice as well as provincial services. Access to the first courtyard is free. It's surrounded by 60 columns, all different. The first floor, where the former reception and banquet hall of the prince-bishops is located, can only be visited on rare occasions.

Under the square, since 2003, you'll find the Archeoforum, an archaeological museum displaying the results of excavations carried out on the site of the Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Lambert Cathedral since 1907. It's open every day except Monday, from 10 AM to 5 PM.

Just a few steps from Place Saint-Lambert, you'll arrive at Place du Marché. It's the perfect spot to sit on a terrace in any season, as they're heated in winter. This is where you'll find the town hall and also the perron and its fountain, which represents Liège's liberties.



When you're on the left side of the Palace of the Prince-Bishops, you can see the Coteaux de la Citadelle up high. To get there, it's simple—just take the streets that go up ;).... You'll arrive at the foot of Montagne de Bueren and its 374 stone steps. This staircase was built at the end of the 19th century to connect the citadel barracks to the lower part of the city without passing through the Pierreuse district. It was named in memory of the 600 Franchimontois who, led by Vincent de Bueren, tried (unsuccessfully) to capture Charles the Bold at the end of the 15th century.

Instead of climbing all those stairs, I preferred to take a left right away into Impasse des Ursulines. You climb up a winding alley to the Coteaux.

Up there, 4 walks are possible: I took the green one. On the way down, you pass by the ruins of an old Minimes church (a mendicant order founded in the 15th century).

Back in the lower city, I headed toward the city center, which is mostly pedestrian, and Saint-Paul Cathedral. It existed in the 10th century as a collegiate church. It was rebuilt in Gothic style in the 13th century and became a cathedral in 1803, replacing the old Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Lambert Cathedral destroyed during the revolution.

Its cloister houses the Liège Treasury, which includes some major pieces, like the reliquary of Charles the Bold and the bust-reliquary of Saint Lambert. It's open every day except Monday, from 2 PM to 5 PM.

To reach the Outremeuse district, the neighborhood where writer Simenon grew up, you just need to cross the river via one of its many bridges:

...like me, you'll come across the statue of Tchantchès while strolling, the hero of Liège's puppet theater who represents the spirited people of Liège.



From this side of the Meuse, you can see the Grand Curtius Museum, which brings together "7,000 years of art and history" (it's the last building on the right in the photo)... while the two red-and-white towers on the left belong to Saint-Barthélemy Collegiate Church.



From March 30 to November 3, you can visit the city by river shuttle. If you're interested: https://www.visitezliege.be/fr/la-navette-fluviale

As for me, I plan to come back in the spring and take advantage of the long days to do the three other walks on the Coteaux de la Citadelle ;).

I definitely plan to come back in the spring and enjoy the long days

Your travel journal continues to give me ideas for future weekends, but I’ll also wait for better weather. Muriel